


Best Hadron Collider

by zorilleerrant



Category: Iron Man (Movies)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-22
Updated: 2016-03-22
Packaged: 2018-05-28 10:24:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6325309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zorilleerrant/pseuds/zorilleerrant





	1. Chapter 1

Tony Stark was too busy fiddling with his phone to notice that he’d walked into a couch until he was sprawled on top of it. He looked up from his phone.

“Pepper,” he said.

Pepper, who had walked in much more carefully, took a seat next to him.

“Pepper,” he said, again. “Did you turn the BHC into a den?”

“You weren’t using it,” she said.

“Of course I wasn’t using it. When I tried to use it, I got all kinds hate mail about how I was going to rip a hole in the fabric of the universe.” Tony paused to fiddle with his phone again. “If I’m going to rip holes in space-time, I’m going to rip holes in space-time the old fashioned way, myself, not by accident.”

“Of course,” Pepper agreed.

“Well, not with giant pieces of difficult to understand technology, anyway,” Tony conceded, “it lacks the personal touch.”

“Yes, Tony,” Pepper said, “you’d never destroy fundamental laws of physics with technology. And if you did, it certainly wouldn’t be with confusing, expensive, potentially apocalyptic technology, and definitely not by accident, because you’re very responsible.”

“Well,” said Tony, “probably only with technology I’ve invented, anyway.”

Pepper rolled her eyes.

Tony glanced into the other room. “Is that a room full of interns playing Frogger?”

“You hired them,” Pepper said. “You staffed this place; they show up for work.”

“How is that work?” Tony asked. “Are you saying, are you seriously saying, that there is a supercomputer here, and that these people are using it to play Frogger?”

“I assume they haven’t been playing the one game the whole time,” Pepper offered, very reasonably. After all, they’d been here for months.

“That is such a waste of computing power, I don’t even –” Tony broke off to storm into the room and give the interns a piece of his mind.

Tony moved to the open console, moved his frog through traffic, and didn’t notice he hadn’t yelled at anyone until he was pumping a fist through the air, screaming, “high score, bitches!” Most of the interns were staring at him. The few that weren’t were staring at Pepper, who was definitely not amused, but in fact doing serious work at another station.

“That’s not fair,” said one of the interns, “you’re rich, and famous, and gorgeous, and also _Iron Man_ , and you’re better than all of us at Frogger, too?”

“That’s me,” Tony said, “genius, billionaire, playboy, Frogger champion.”

“Ha,” said Pepper. “And that is why I’m CEO.”

Tony stared plaintively at the other screen. “How are you better than me at Frogger?”

“What do you think I’m doing on my tablet at board meetings?” Pepper smirked.

Tony frowned. “I thought you were taking notes.”

“Nobody in the world needs notes on a board meeting, Tony.”

“Rhodey took them, that one time, when I made him sit in.”

Pepper raised an eyebrow. “I’m pretty sure he was playing Angry Birds.”

“God, I hate that game,” Tony grumbled. “I can never get the birds to do the thing. I invented a new one. Except it has more intuitive physics, and it’s easier to replicate the same commands, and it’s easier to tell exactly what you’re doing, and it’s up and down instead of across. It’s Tetris. It’s Tetris with birds that look like Iron Man.”

Pepper stared. “Tony, have you been sleeping?”

“No,” said Tony.

“It’s a real thing, though,” one of the interns told her.

“Oh, yeah,” one of the others agreed, “Starky Birds has a huge amount of downloads.”

“I like Bird Machine better,” yet another intern chimed in.

“Bird Machine.” Pepper crossed her arms.

“It’s exactly the same,” Tony said, “only it texts Rhodey every time someone gets a high score.”

“You probably shouldn’t do that,” Pepper said.

Tony cocked his head. “Why not?”

“Do you think he likes getting all those pointless texts?” Pepper asked.

“Oh,” said Tony. Then, a minute later, “oh, oh, wow, oh, I’ll take that feature down.”


	2. Chapter 2

Rhodes was in a meeting when he felt his phone vibrate against his leg. He didn’t let his expression change, listening intently to his superiors, quietly wishing he’d remembered to turn it off. Then it shook again. It wasn’t audible over the fan trying its hardest to circulate air around the room, though, so he ignored it.

When it happened again, twice, in quick succession, Rhodes began to get worried. Someone trying this hard to get into contact with him probably meant an emergency. He hoped it wasn’t his sister, or his parents. Then, the buzzing picked up tempo, and Rhodey relaxed. Right. Just Tony, then. The phone was buzzing non-stop by the end of the meeting.

Once he was alone, Rhodes looked at the long, long series of text messages, all a very formulaic, “Someone just got a high score in Bird Machine!” A few of the messages were tagged with usernames. Most of them were just long series of numbers.

Just in case, he texted Tony, asking if the engineer had anything to do with his newfound popularity. When his friend responded with a long, rambling, excited series of texts about exactly how he’d designed birds to look like Rhodey, the colonel gave up and just ignored all of the notifications.

It was definitely Tony, anyway, which meant it was nothing to worry about.

Or, at least, it meant worrying wouldn’t get him anywhere.

A few days later, with a frustrated scream, the usually highly professional soldier threw his phone across the room. Where it shattered, because he was testing the armor. And he threw it very hard.

He went to get a new phone that afternoon. When the bubbly sales associate asked if he wanted a new number to go with his new phone, Rhodes almost wept in relief. Of course he did, and maybe he just wouldn’t tell Tony what it was. Just for a few days.

He turned his new phone on, waiting for the blissful silence, but instead, it started chiming incessantly. The soldier had to double check that it was, in fact, far too many texts, and not just an irritating ringtone. He wasted no time in turning the volume off. Later, he realized someone had left him a voicemail. It was Tony, complaining that he hadn’t even told his Best Friend his new number. Well, he would have, if the guy would give him more than an hour!

Oh, no, that was right. He wouldn’t have. ‘Luckily,’ Tony had JARVIS.

Eventually, the notifications slowed, and mostly they were one of three usernames that Rhodey had, to his serious annoyance, learned to recognize a while ago. And then, the barrage got even worse. He wondered if Tony had ‘invented’ another new game.

No, these were all actual messages.

Messages like, “We’re sorry, War Machine! We didn’t know the notifications were bothering you!” or, “Oh, man, Tony’s a douche. Why are you friends with him?” or most frequently, “dicks lol!”

Rhodey counted to ten, took a deep breath, and centered himself.

“Goddamnit, Tony, I am a Lieutenant Colonel in the United States Air Force!”

It was an hour before he realized he had left it as a voicemail.


	3. Chapter 3

Tony listened to his message. Then he played it again. Then he double checked that it was, in fact, from Rhodey.

He stared at his phone.

He played it again.

He stared at his phone.

“I know that,” Tony said.


End file.
